


I Ask For So Little

by FrenchRoast



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:03:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jareth has some fun with Rumplestiltskin. Set in the Enchanted Forest, before the Curse, so also technically set before the events of Labyrinth.</p><p>Written for the second round of the Rumbelle Showdown. Prompts: David Bowie, Dinosaurs, Book club</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ask For So Little

“Belle?” Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, who nearly everyone in this realm trembled in fear of, was looking for his maid again. He’d strolled into the kitchen, expecting to see her working on his lunch, but she was nowhere to be seen, and there hadn’t been so much as a teakettle boiling. She’d forgotten about feeding him. Again.

“Yes?” a voice called from upstairs. Of course, she was in that dusty library. She was always in the library. Rumple ran up the stairs and found Belle sitting cross-legged on the window seat, a book in her hands. She looked up as he strode into the library towards her. “Do you need something, Rumple?”

“What is that you’re reading?”

“Labyrinth. It’s about the Goblin King, Jare-“

“So not a cookbook, then?”

Belle frowned. “No. You should read it, though. It’s very good.”

“The Dark One doesn’t have time for faery stories. Especially,” he said, whirling away from her in a flourish, “when he has to keep interrupting his important work to remind his little maid to prepare his meals.”

“It’s not lunchtime yet! I was going to the kitchen once I finished this chapter,” Belle protested. “I wish you’d trust me to manage my own time!”

“And I wish the Goblin King you’re so fascinated with was real so he could turn you into a creature that wouldn’t question me! But he’s not, so off to the kitchen you go!” Rumple snapped his fingers and Belle found herself downstairs in the kitchen.

“I hate when he does that,” she muttered mostly to herself. The book had been transported with her, so she set it to the side and began to hunt down ingredients for a sandwich that would be edible, but far from tasty. That would serve him right.

* * *

Two hours passed before the Dark One realized he was starving and that Belle had yet to show up with his lunch. “What the devil has gotten into her today?” he wondered. He charged into the kitchen, prepared for an argument. “Now listen up, dearie, I-“ he stopped his tirade when he saw that Belle wasn’t in the kitchen. There was a tray with the beginnings of a meal placed on it, and on the counter was a half-assembled sandwich, though why Belle thought avocado, corned beef, and some kind of jam would make a good combination was beyond Rumplestiltskin’s comprehension.

But even further beyond the Dark One’s comprehension—and far more pressing—was the large velociraptor that stood at the other end of the kitchen. The raptor was making quite a mess of the chickens he’d purchased from a local farmer. Feathers and blood were flying everywhere.

Terror seized Rumple’s gut. Had Belle…the creature couldn’t have eaten Belle? Surely not. Without thinking, he yelled for her once more. “Belle!” Naturally, this caught the attention of the velociraptor, who stopped feasting on the chickens and turned to figure out where the noise had come from.

“Oh no,” Rumplstiltskin started to back away towards the door. The raptor roared and came running straight at him, claws outstretched. Rumple reached around for something, anything to use to fend off the dinosaur, completely forgetting that he had magic at his disposal. His hands landed on Belle’s book. He grabbed the book just in time to club the dinosaur over the head with it as he tried to get out of the raptor’s path. The velociraptor lost traction on the floor and skidded most of the way into the cold meat locker. Rumple quickly moved to close the door, shoving the dinosaur all the way in, and he bolted it shut.

He ran out of the kitchen, still holding the book he’d used as a club, and he continued to call for Belle. He ran up to the library and breathed a momentary sigh of relief when he saw the figure sitting in the armchair in the corner.

Unfortunately, the figure stood up, and Rumplestiltskin saw that it was definitely not Belle. The hair alone was a clue, but so too were the very tight tights and the bulge they barely managed to contain.

“Who are you? How did you get here? And what have you done with my maid?”

“You know who I am, Rumplestiltskin. You called on me. And I have only done what you asked of me.”

“…Jareth?” Rumple had never met the Goblin King. He had never believed he really existed, but he’d heard the stories as a child. People in this realm feared the Dark One now, but the Goblin King was said to be far more dangerous.

“I am the Goblin King, Dark One.”

“But the faerie realm was closed off from travel to and from other realms centuries ago. Well before I became the Dark One.”

“The call of the Dark One reopened the path between our realms.” Jareth flopped down onto the window seat Belle favored, a laugh shining from his eyes. “How did you manage to kill Gorgon the Invincible, anyhow? I was always rather fond of his particular incarnation. Did you have a nice roast afterwards, or did you opt for BLTs instead? Boar is supposed to be delicious.”

“I didn’t kill him to become the Dark One. That was Zoso.”

“My, my, I have been gone for awhile, haven’t I?”

Rumple didn’t answer. “Where is Belle?”

“Why, downstairs in the kitchen where you left her. I should think you’d be happy, she certainly can’t talk back or question you now. It’s quite difficult for velociraptors to learn how to speak. Very nearly impossible.”

“You…you turned my maid into a DINOSAUR?!”

Jareth clapped his hands, delighted. “I’m so glad you like what I’ve done. It has been so long since I’ve been able to do anything like this, and I was concerned the transformation might not work entirely. I usually transform babies, not grown women.”

“Change her back,” Rumplestiltskin ordered. “I didn’t wish for you to change her into a dinosaur.”

“But she’s so lovely and scaly this way. I thought you might prefer it if she had more in common with you, Dark One. You did wish for me to turn her into a creature, did you not? Would you have preferred a unicorn? I hope not, they’re terribly boring.”

“So help me Jareth, if you don’t change her back to exactly the way she was before I made that ill-worded wish, I will find a way to close the faery realm and trap you there forever,” the Dark One threatened.

“And if I do?” Jareth stood up from his spot at the window.

“How about we make a deal?” Rumple suggested. He knew no fae could resist a deal.

“I do love deals.”

“I’ll not try to trap you back in the faerie realm as long as you restore Belle and never harm or so much as speak to me and mine again. And no taking children from their parents,” Rumple added, remembering the old stories of mothers finding changelings in a crib they’d left unattended for only moments.

“I would never take a child from its parents,” Jareth swore, his face briefly aghast. _Siblings, guardians on the other hand…_ he smiled as he silently contemplated all the possible loopholes. “Give me that crystal you keep on your bedside table, and you have a deal,” he proclaimed. 

“This crystal?” Rumplestiltskin asked with a flourish, now holding it out. It was a small clear crystal ball; it fit nicely in one's palm. “You can have it; it’s useless when you can see the future like me.” 

Jareth took it and vanished with no further words exchanged. In his place stood a restored, in-no-way-resembling-a-dinosaur Belle.

“Look, I’ll go downstairs now and make you a lunch,” Belle told Rumplestiltskin. “You didn’t have to snatch the book out of my hands,” she said, gesturing at the book Rumple was still holding. Belle flounced down the stairs, muttering as she went. Rumple walked over to the window seat and sat down, relieved he had Belle back and that she didn’t remember anything of what had happened.  Or he was relieved, until he heard Belle screaming from the kitchen. Belle had been restored, but not the chickens she’d slaughtered. The blood and feathers and general destruction were all still there.

Oops.


End file.
